X-Rite launches beta version of its custom ICC profiling tool with Capture One support

Color management and measurement technology company X-Rite has announced a new public beta release of ColorChecker Camera Calibration software version 1.2. This pre-release update includes support for Phase One's Capture One software with TIFF file support, a first for X-Rite's custom profiling tool.

X-Rite has been working on adding Capture One support to its custom camera profiling software for some time now and it's finally here — at least in beta form. As is currently possible in the Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw version of the ColorChecker Camera Calibration software, v1.2 adds the ability to create custom ICC profiles in Capture One with various camera, lens and lighting combinations.

X-Rite has created a helpful how-to video, embedded below, that runs through the process of creating a custom ICC profile using Camera Calibration software v1.2. There's also a PDF version available.

To download the public beta release, head over to X-Rite's download page. Keep in mind this is a pre-release program, so there will likely be a few bugs here and there. X-Rite requests users submit details when an error occurs to help further development.

X-Rite also notes a known issue with the Windows version of the ColorChecker Camera Calibration software wherein 'the software cannot process a TIFF file larger than 150 megabytes.' X-Rite suggests cropping or reducing the resolution if users run into this issue and notes the issue is currently being addressed.

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When I use DNG, I become very strange color effects. Yellow turns to blue, grey turns yellow and so on. (screenshot available). Capture One is aware of this bug, but still doesn't have a solution. So I could not make a profile with ColorChecker Passport, because all my older raw-files are converted to DNG. With the original raw files though there seems not to be any problem.

After talking to tech support it looks like it's not an OS issue. It should work fine on High Sierra. It still crashes for me on multiple Macbook Pros and iMacs. Nothing runs is able to run it at our studios. Looking at crash logs it looks like there is a missing Twilight.framework. Tech support is looking into it and will let me know if they figure out the issue.

It works perfectly! Thanks X-Rite and Phase One! :) It is a huge time saver. Very quick to use.

Just follow the steps. it is important at the end to choose manually the gray balance, using one of the grey patches at the bottom to the left of the middle, then you can choose the new icc profile you created. The iCC profile is saved within you project folder.

"After reading the color checker with the pipette I have the correct colour balance."

That's white balance. Nothing more. People have been asking for years for a way to create profiles in C1 like Adobe has. There's been other, more complex software out for a while, but X-Rite is probably the first to have a simple solution (once you can export a proper reference from C1...).

"So why should I make it so complicated with an ICC profile which becomes irrelevant after a few minutes, after changing light/set up???"

You can blame C1 for that. DCP profiles don't have that issue. ICC profiles do.

@Zeee

C1's "color" is just like Canon's "color". Meant to be pleasing, not accurate. Some cameras get horrible-looking, or even copy/paste profiles, too. DIY profiling is almost always preferred to get more realistic colors. It takes a lot of extra work to get truly realistic colors, though.

Lots of people are fine with C1's colors, but it's very camera dependent. Take my A6300s, for example. The colors are just ugly in C1. No reason they should be, as the colors didn't deviate much from what Sony previously launched (A6000, NEX-6). Then the camera released just months after it, the A6500, has great color in C1. Yet they have the exact same sensor! Meanwhile, go into Adobe software, and the profiles between the two are nearly exact, leaning closer to C1's pleasing A6500 profile than C1's A6300 one. Canon cameras have better color than both in C1 (I regularly edit them for work), and I haven't tried Nikons in C1, but I'd suspect they'd be better, too. Maybe that's why the free version of C1 is for Sony...

It is not just about colour balance, but exposure too, this latter have a direct impact on the colour balance. This add-on to Capture One Pro is extremely well done and simple to process. Anyone looking for accurate colours and consistency for every shots, it is that simple: the way to go.

Of course if someone is doing artistic photography, the choice of the colour balance will be very subjective, but if you are doing product shots it is a complete different story where colour accuracy is a great must and there X-Rite and Phase One have juste gathered the essential tools.

"It is not just about colour balance, but exposure too, this latter have a direct impact on the colour balance."

Yup, that's one of the annoying parts of built-in profiles: hue twists. Make your own profiles from scratch, and you can get rid of those, so colors will stay the same whether bright or dark. There are also ways to get rid of them in Adobe's built-in DCP profiles.

Do you shoot Tungsten, then change to Halogen, to fluorescent and then to LED? Or do you shoot with one set of lights. Remember, this is not just color temperature, it is creating a profile for your specific sensor under specific lighting conditions.

Very simple, if you change your setup, light, exposure, meter measurements, then you should take a picture of an X-Rite colour target and produce a new profile for each setup. This is the best way to be constant to obtain good results.

Peter Bell 54I disagree. The icc profile is more generic than having to change the profile if you move a light or change the exposure. The icc profile in C1 lists one profile for my K-3II (Pentax K3 II Generic) for newer cameras with different icc profiles built in there will be more. There is no profile for flash, tungsten, halogen etc. However, for their Phase One IQ4 150MP there are several icc profiles. Flash - Flat Art Reproduction, Flash, Landscape, Neutral, Portrait Soft, Portrait and Tungsten. With this tool you can create your own icc profile for your lighting configuration for your sensor. Now if you switch from flash to tungsten lights, yes you should use a different icc profile. If you change the exposure, no there is no reason to change the icc profile given that the light is the same. If what you are saying is true, you would have to use a different icc profile for a change in exposure even in daylight.

You're doing white balance, not making a profile. That is sufficient for most uses, but if you're doing something where you really color accurate (Art Reproduction, Product Photography, Scientific Photography) then exposure and white balance are not enough and you need to make a profile.

That said accurate does not mean something looks good and something looking good does not mean it's accurate (often the two are mutually exclusive, skies and grass look better a bit richer than reality, skin looks better with less blue than reality, etc.)

I have been using LR with colour checker for a long time. Now moved to C1. Spent ages watching YouTube videos on how to calibrate colours. There was no easy solution. Am so looking forward to using the colour checker on C1! I shoot artwork so they are colour critical.

Hi BlueBomber, thanks for the software reference. I did see a YouTuber use that software for C1, but to me felt quite cumbersome all the stages involved. Do you have any experience using this software. It does look good as it can also handle Spyder checker. Shame no Kodak colour chart on the list. Be great to hear your experience with Lumariver and C1. Thanks in advance

Yes, I've been using it for the past 1.5 years. Took almost that long on and off to master the DCP side. ;) Default settings will create a pleasing, near-accurate look, so you don't have to do much to get results miles ahead of what any editing software comes with. Just drop the prepared TIFF (Linear Response curve, white balanced, exported using the camera's own ICC in the export panel) in the software and hit render. Then go to the last tab, name the profile, and export it. Takes longer to prep the TIFF image in C1 than to make the profile. ;)

My biggest issue is with the extreme highlight handling, though. Because this is an ICC profile that goes over an already rendered image, sometimes there's only so much you can do. I find the clipping to come on a little bit early, and it can be somewhat messy (clips in bands from orange/red, then to yellow, then to white).

Because of this, I've found two ways to create C1 profiles from LRPD. First, you can create a Linear curve profile, and use the Film Standard curve in C1 to bring back contrast. Or, you can use the default way, and use one of the preset curves in LRPD (C1 curve is default) and use the Linear Response curve in C1. The issue mostly affects things like sunrises/sunsets, so it's not really that bad. But I'm quite partial to those scenes and shoot them often, so it's a show stopper for me. For the rest of the image, though, colors look great, with results similar to making DCP profiles for Adobe software in LRPD.

This all seems so barbaric. All this should be automated to the point you shoot the color checker; plug your camera into your PC or MAC and it's done. This all reminds me of the old days of tube radios. Same with lens and camera MA. Technology is such that color accuracy and focus should be automated.

This all seems so barbaric. All this should be automated to the point you shoot the color checker; plug your camera into your PC or MAC and it's done. This all reminds me of the old days of tube radios. Same with lens and camera MA. Technology is such that color accuracy and focus should be automated.

I don't know if it is possible or not, I don't use LR (anymore.) I was never satisfied with colors and contrast in LR. I use C1 for over a year now and the results are so much better. So my thinking is that everything that helps LR creat better Colors is a must have...

I had been using LR since its Beta. I gave it up when Adobe went subscription, but I have been using X-Rite ColorChecker Passport for a decade or so to build dcp profiles for LR (I still use 6.14 on my old 2008 laptop).These days I use Capture One (on my desktop) and I find that this icc profile maker to be heaven sent since C1 has a single icc profile for each of my Pentax bodies. Now I can create icc profiles for those non-standard situations that the guys from Capture One don't have in their labs.It would be interesting to see if someone is willing to test a profile for LR using this methodology. Maybe it is possible to create a icc-free/curve-free TIFF in LR too rather than a dcp profile. Perhaps it is possible to bring LR and C1 into the same standard without having to buy the very expensive standalone X-Rite system.One profile to rule them all ;)

The single ICC profile for Pentax indeed is a drawback. That said, I think everything depends what you do with your images. If you want a pinpoint ICC profile for a given situations (I am thinking studio photography here), then profiling is the way to go (and this X-rite tool is heaven send.) You could already do that (with a little bit of effort, X-rite makes it a little easier.) I am thinking of making my own profiles now if I find the time. But all in all, the standard profile for K-5/K-1 in Capture 1 (which I own) are very good for most situations.

Can't be done because DNGs (with actual raw data) are not rendered or output referred and ICC profiles are solely based on output referred, rendered data. There's nothing Xrite can do about this. You want to deal with raw camera profiles, you use a format that's designed for it in the raw processing chain: DCP profiles. Just to create an ICC profile, you need to render the raw in the first place. Not the case with DCP profiles. So there's a fundamental difference in the two, when and where used.

Meaning I should be able to make a correct ICC profile? I now use the general DNG profile, which is ok, but my idea is to create one or several ICC profiles, which, if successful should bypass the no support for the MkII...

you have the color checker in your image, and you have to map it. The software compares the colored spots from your image with its internal data to give you a profile for the conditions in which you shot that image.

You have to white balance the image and correct the exposure in C1, remove all ICC profiles, and export a TIFF using the image's embedded ICC profile from the camera. Then you can import it into the X-Rite software. Same with any other ICC profiling software for C1 profiles. It's not drag and drop like a RAW, unfortunately.

@Vladyslav it does not know, as it's a piece of software. It produces, as a result of the comparison, a profile for the conditions you shot that image. It does not repair your camera's sensor, nor does it say how to tune your light's color temperature, it creates a profile for you to use if you have to shoot hundreds of images in the same conditions, let's say for your client that has an ebay shop.

I'm new to camera icc's but seems like V K's point is a good one. I shoot architecture, usually with both natural and electric lights present. I've always struggled with how to capture the ambience without destroying it. Seems like a camera icc would do just that. Besides which that's a lot of fooling around with a different file and calibration in every image…..

The use of this tool is to create a icc profile. The process steps leave you with a file that does not contain any information embedded from Phase One. The "no profile" removes the Capture One created device specific profile. The "Linear response" provides the unaltered data. You then put this file as a generic TIFF through the software and it builds a icc profile for the device and the color temp.

The process removes device specific information and RAW format embedded information so the program can create a custom icc profile (emphasis on custom) for a given lighting scenario. So for those people complaining about not having a profile for ______ this is your chance to roll your own.

Once you build a profile for a give set of light sources, you simply select thr profile you have created for the given situation. Otherwise use the profile for your device that is provided by Capture One.

Phase One is Dannish company and Pentax is Japanese. I doubt such acquisition is likely or possible. Added Phase One have a successful line of cameras. I cannot understand what is it that Phase One would gain from Pentax. Perhaps the brand name. At this stage it seems Phase One brand is actually better received.

I don't understand... within C1 I have all the tools to read out all the infos from a colour checker and use it as a preset within Capture One. Why make it so complicated, only that within the ICC profile the lens is included.

Again useless for me since I change lenses all the time...

for every shot I take at first a colour checker picture and the shoot (studio and outdoors) then correct later in post within C1

@NicolasoYou are missing the point. I have been using a ColorChecker passport for several years and I have used it with both LR and C1. The process is similar in both products (now), but LR/passport uses dcp and dng to provide profile information. Creating a dcp profile takes about the same number of steps as creating a icc profile in this scenario.

I shoot lighting profiles not necessarily lens profiles. I have, and do, shoot using multiple light temperature light sources that I am sure Phase One or Adobe do not have in their labs. This allows me to get the appropriate color balance for a majority of the images. For example, daylight, halogen, mercury vapor, tungsten and florescent (company cafeteria)

If you have lenses that require separate icc profiles for a given light source, then I suggest that you get better lenses.

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